Marin, Sonoma water agencies call for conservation as drought continues

Marin and Sonoma water agencies have begun urging customers to conserve water in the face of the worst drought the region has seen in at least a century.

The Marin Municipal, North Marin and Sonoma County water agencies and seven other municipal and regional water systems that use its Russian River water launched their first wintertime conservation campaign this week with the theme "The Drought is On; Turn the Water Off."

Usually such campaigns are for summer months.

"But because of the dry year we want to promote conservation now as well," said Libby Pischel, Marin Municipal Water District spokeswoman.

Water managers say that Lake Sonoma, the centerpiece of the region's water supply, has about a year's worth of water left before the Sonoma County Water Agency would be forced to ration the supply to client cities and districts and their 600,000 customers.

The Marin Municipal Water District serves about 190,000 people between Sausalito and San Rafael and gets 25 percent of its water from Sonoma, the balance coming from local reservoirs on Mount Tamalpais. The North Marin Water District, which provides water to Novato and West Marin to 60,000 people, gets 80 percent of its water from Sonoma and the rest from Stafford Lake.

Coming out of a record dry year in 2013, officials are hoping to extend the Lake Sonoma supply as long as possible before it reaches a critical level.

The campaign will feature ads online in local broadcast and print outlets urging residents to conserve water, cutting down landscape irrigation, car washing, and other outdoor activities and publicizing existing programs to replace indoor appliances and fixtures with more efficient models.

This builds on an earlier campaign, over the summer, urging residents to take the "20 gallon challenge," reducing their usage by that much every day. This new call, however, is much more urgent given the dire lack of precipitation in the rainy season so far.

Marin just experienced its driest year on record. In 2013, 10.68 inches of rain were recorded at Lake Lagunitas, where the Marin Municipal Water District — which has data dating to 1879 — keeps its official weather gauge.

The previous record low was set in 1929 when 19.06 inches of rain fell. The annual average is 52 inches per year.

Forecasters say there is a glimmer of hope for later this year, with some early signs that warming water in the Pacific may generate the condition known as "El Niño" that normally means wetter weather on the West Coast.

In the short term, however, the North Bay has little prospect of rain. The National Weather Service said this week that a weak weather system will move into the Pacific Northwest over the next few days, bringing a dusting of snow to the Sierra and rain to the upper Sacramento Valley as early as Saturday, but that is unlikely to generate much precipitation in Marin and Sonoma.

The wintertime conservation campaign is intended to save water now and get customers accustomed to drought conditions going into the summer, when demand peaks and Lake Sonoma will be under the most strain should the winter remain dry, said Grant Davis, general manager of the Sonoma County Water Agency.

The worst-case scenario, he said, would be to see water levels drop so low that the cities such as Novato can't get the water they need and flows in the river falls so low as to damage habitat for wildlife. "And that is a real possibility ... we have to plan for that," he said.

Information on the drought situation and tips for conserving water are available at wateroff.org.